FullReads

“‘HANCOCK–TAILOR,'” reads out the officer aloud, stepping back into the roadway and peering up at the shop-front. “Very well, my man, you’ll hear from us again–“

“I’m not askin’ for any reward, Sir.”

“So you’ve said: and I was about to say that, if this turns out to be a trick, you’ll hear from us again, and in a way you’ll be sorry for. And now, once more, take your ugly head inside. ‘Tis my duty to act on information, but I don’t love informers.”

For the moment the threat made the tailor uncomfortable: but he felt pretty sure the sailors, when they discovered the trick, wouldn’t be able to do him much harm. The laugh of the whole town would be against them: and on Regatta Night the press–unpopular enough at the best of times–would gulp down the joke and make the best of it. He went back to his bench; but on second thoughts not to his work. ‘Twould be on the safe side, anyway, to be not at home for an hour or two, in case the sailors came back to cry quits. Playing the lonely martyr, too, wasn’t much fun with this mischief working inside of him and swelling his lungs like barm. He took a bite of bread and a sup of cider, blew out the candle, let himself forth into the street after a glance to make sure that all was clear, and headed for the “Fish and Anchor.”

He found the bar-room crowded, but not with the usual Regatta Night throng of all-sorts. The drinkers assembled were either burgesses like himself or waterside men with protection-papers in their pockets: for news of the press-gang had run through the town like wildfire, and the company had given over discussing the race of the day and taken up with this new subject. Among the protected men his eye lit on Treleaven the hoveller, husband to Long Eliza, and Caius Pengelly, husband to Ann, that had pulled bow in the race. He winked to them mighty cunning. The pair of ’em seemed dreadfully cast down, and he knew a word to put them in heart again.

“Terrible blow for us, mates, this woman’s mutiny!” says he, dropping into a chair careless-like, pulling out a short pipe, and speaking high to draw the company’s attention.

“Oh, stow it!” says Caius Pengelly, very sour. “We’d found suthin’ else to talk about; and if the women have the laugh of us to-day, who’s responsible, after all? Why, you–you, with your darned silly song about Adam and Eve! If you hadn’t provoked your wife, this here wouldn’t ha’ happened.”

“Indeed?” says the monkey-fellow, crossing his legs and puffing. “So you’ve found something better to talk about? What’s that, I’d like to know?”

“Why, there’s a press-gang out,” says Treleaven. “But there! a fellow with your shaped legs don’t take no interest in press-gangs, I reckon.”

“Ah, to be sure,” says the little man–but he winced and uncrossed his legs all the same, feeling sorry he’d made ’em so conspicuous–“ah, to be sure, a press-gang! I met ’em; but, as it happens, that’s no change of subject.”

“Us don’t feel in no mood to stomach your fun to-night, Hancock; and so I warn ‘ee,” put in Pengelly, who had been drinking more than usual and spoke thick. “If you’ve a meaning up your sleeve, you’d best shake it out.”

Hancock chuckled. “You fellows have no invention,” he said; “no resource at all, as I may call it. You stake on this race, and, when the women beat you, you lie down and squeal. Well, you may thank me that I’m built different: I bide my time, but when the clock strikes I strike with it. I never did approve of women dressing man-fashion: but what’s the use of making a row in the house? ‘The time is bound to come,’ said I to myself; and come it has. If you want a good story cut short, I met the press-gang just now and turned ’em on to raid the ‘Sailor’s Return’: and if by to-morrow the women down there have any crow over us, then I’m a Dutchman, that’s all!”